Assessing the bilateral geometrical differences of the tibia--are they the same?

Contralateral bones are often used in many medical applications but it is assumed that their bilateral differences are insignificant. Previous studies used a limited number of distance measurements in quantifying the corresponding differences; therefore, little is known about their bilateral 3D surface asymmetries. The aim of the study is to develop a comprehensive method to quantify geometrical asymmetries between the left and right tibia in order to provide first results on whether the contralateral tibia can be used as an equivalent reference. In this study, 3D bone models were reconstructed from CT scans of seven tibiae pairs, and 34 variables consisting of 2D and 3D measurements were measured from various anatomical regions. All 2D measurements, and lateral plateau and distal subchondral bone surface measurements showed insignificant differences (p>0.05), but the rest of the surfaces showed significant differences (p<0.05). Our results suggest that the contralateral tibia can be used as a reference especially in surgical applications such as articular reconstructions since the bilateral differences in the subchondral bone surfaces were less than 0.3mm. The method can also be potentially transferable to other relevant studies that require the accurate quantification of bone bilateral asymmetries.